When the economy slows down, many people are losing their jobs. As a result, they cannot meet their monthly mortgage obligations and thus they may lose their homes due to foreclosure. If you are at risk in facing the same situation and want to know how to stop foreclosure, this article will give you some steps that you should consider so you can keep your home during difficult financial crisis.
Before you tackle your problem, you have to clear your mind and get rid of any frustration. If you are stressed out, you will not be able to think clearly. This condition will make your current situation even worse because you may make the wrong decision based on impulse or out of frustration. Therefore, you need to take some time to calm yourself before you start looking for options that you have to solve the issue.
After you clear your mind, you can start on your quest to find the answer on how to stop foreclosure. Firstly you need to regain control of your personal finance. It means that you have to know your income and your expenses. Try to separate your expenses into different categories, such as bills, transportation, food, transportation, insurance, and entertainments. Collect all your bills from previous months so you will get better accuracy. Once you do this exercise, you will find out the amount of money that you have left to pay the mortgage.
If you find that your money is not enough to pay the mortgage, you should cut back your expenses. Start with items that belong to the entertainment category. Basically these are items that you want, but not items that you need. Items like cable TV, monthly subscriptions, club memberships, watching movies, and dinner outside are categorized as entertainment and you have to cut back your expense significantly from this category. You can live without them and if you keep spending on these items, you will live without your house.
If you have eliminated the unnecessary entertainments, you can move to the next category and that is your bills. Reduce your energy usage by using less electricity, less heating and cooling, and unplugging electricity devices from their sockets. If necessary, you should consider selling some items that you rarely use. You can reduce your phone bills by canceling call waiting and caller ID.
The next thing to do is to reduce your transportation cost. Perhaps you can arrange car pool with your colleagues, friends, or neighbors. If it is feasible and cheaper, you should use public transport instead. You need to discipline yourself and you will surprise to find out how much money you can save from this reducing strategy.
Now you get the final number and know how much money you can use to pay the mortgage. This is the time to contact your lender and negotiate your term of payment. If you have received a notice, you have to respond to them immediately. If you delay, it will be difficult to avoid foreclosure. Discuss with the lender about your financial situation and show to them that you have managed to calculate your monthly expenses. Ask them for help, they should be able to come up with some refinancing plan that meets your current budget.
Lenders usually are willing to help their customers because they want to avoid foreclosure as well. The process of foreclosure is complicated and expensive for them. Furthermore, they work in lending money business, thus they do not want to manage properties. If nobody stays in the properties, they will not receive any money from them. Therefore, it is better for them to help you rather than go to foreclosure. Hopefully this brief article will help you to find out how to stop foreclosure.
Cindy Heller is a professional writer. To learn how to stop foreclosure, please visit Free Foreclosure Help.
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